Anti Counterfeiting Trade Agreement - InternetNZ puts pressure on!
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Posted Thu 4 March 2010 @ 8:19 p.m. by Ernie Newman
Really interesting move the last couple of days.
The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement has been the elephant in the room while various governments have been working through Copyright issues, and especially Internet piracy. Despite the softer stance our government has taken on the infamous Section 92a, if New Zealand signs ACTA there is a risk the government might have to revert to draconian laws again.
And the debate world-wide around ACTA has been held in conditions of surprising secrecy, attracting criticism not only from extreme libertarians, but from middle of the road groups and individuals concerned about an over-reaction to file sharing. Why? Search me, but something smells.
As it happens the next meeting of the international government representatives negotiating ACTA will be held in Wellington next month. And in the last 36 hours two interesting things have happened.
First, InternetNZ has announced that it will run a "PublicACTA" forum in Wellington 2 days before the closed-door official negotiations, so as to give awareness and exposure to the official process. As a tactic, I reckon that's very smart!
But second, just a few hours after InternetNZ announced its plan, NZ officials contacted TUANZ offering to brief our members on progress and seek input. I'm sure they've contacted other organisations too.
Now I'm not implying that the two messages are linked. But I suspect that InternetNZ has made it harder to keep ACTA under wraps and thus achieved at least some of its objective without having to promote its event or butter the Marmite sandwiches. Well done, Jordan and team!
TUANZ will be taking up the MFAT offer, probably at our Board level. Any other members who want to take part are welcome to contact me.
Categories: Fixed line carriers | ISPs | TUANZ policy | Wireless carriers